#F1 Inseason Testing, Red Bull Ring Day 2 Report

It was a busy day at the Red Bull Ring in the Austrian Mountains as all teams tried to make up for lost running in yesterday’s partial wash-out. Williams’ Valtteri Bottas was the only of nine drivers who did not complete at least 100 laps. By far the most laps (158) were driven by Germany’s Marco Wittmann, reigning DTM champion for BMW, who got a chance to drive for Toro Rosso. The debutant ended the day in 4th position with a 1:10.103.

With track conditions and temperatures far better than yesterday the times were much closer to what we saw on the weekend. Unsurprisingly the Mercedes, piloted by Nico Rosberg ended the day in the top spot with a 1:09.113, eight tenth clear of the rest.

McLaren needed a whole hour before they ventured out for the first time, but from then on it was a relatively trouble free day, racking up 104 laps, mainly doing aero tests. Alonso ended up 7th, 1.6 seconds adrift of Rosberg’s time.

The SF15T of the Gestione Sportiva was piloted by Esteban Gutierrez, who ended the day in second position, .8 seconds behind Rosberg. During the day Ralf Bach of Bild Motorsport reported that Williams have received an offer of 4 Million Euro to release Bottas from his contract with Hülkenberg a favourite to replace the Finn at Williams. The lanky German is not in the running for a Ferrari seat as Ferrari would not want to have two drivers of the same nation to avoid PR problems should it become necessary to declare one of them a clear #1 in ca championship fight.

Continuing to rack up an amazing amount of seat time was Pascal Wehrlein, who drove for Force India, who mainly continued to evaluate their update package. The German ended the day in 5th position, about a second faster than what he drove in the Mercedes yesterday.

Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo cause a late red flag an hour before the end when his Renault engine expired in a cloud of smoke. Beforehand the Australian had managed 116 laps, finishing second to last.

Red Bull were mainly doing aero runs. Those are not driven for time. Usually you try to run many very consistent laps. RIC’s car looked for most of the day as if he had stolen someone’s garden fence with those aero rakes nailed to it.

Would they get much benefit from testing anyway? They won’t be able to test much for the 2015/16 car on their old one I wouldn’t have thought, better take the time to go back to the factory and get on with designing and building it. Even if they did get a few tenths out of their current car they’d still end up last, just by a few tenths less…

In my opinion Hulkenberg is better than Bottas. Every time the latter has been in position for something special he has made some mistake. Which doesn’t mean he is bad or won’t get better… but come on, Hulkenberg has been ignored for so long.

True.. but what if Ferrari buy out Bottas. Hulk to Williams as his replacement? Vergne is another who would probably ‘do a Hulk’ and win a wet race in a RBR.. maybe Haas? If they took Hulk-Gutierrez, they need to see 2013..

Both look promising drivers but I’d agree that the Hulk looks better. Bottas hasn’t really blown Massa away and he wasn’t good enough for Ferrari… In some ways I can see their point but you’d have thought getting good points and putting up a challenge for the WCC would matter more.

No idea what has happened to Kimi, maybe he only does well in smaller teams where the pressures are less? I know he won in the Ferrari but no-one expected him to. Now there is expectation to perform he seems unable to do so.

“Car feels good. Braking and accelerating feels different to what I’m used to in my DTM, but all good” says Wittmann after 1st 4 laps of day. – Twitter Torro Rosso.

It says a lot about the lack of downforce and power of today’s F1 cars that Wittmann primarily focuses on braking and accelerating compared to a DTM car and can run 158 laps trouble free all day and post a time like that. Easy to get used to, easy to drive. Lotterer was also not that impressed compared to last years LMP1’s. I remember rookies intimidated by cars and having fatigue and neck issues after their first test runs of a lot less laps.